Eileen and Joyce got this television
to watch
the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II.
Many people remember this event
as their first experience
of seeing television pictures.

Look carefully
at the television they bought.
How is it different
from your television?
Imagine what it was like
to watch television for the first time.

Eileen and Joyce talk about
watching the coronation on television:

"The neighbours downstairs
came up and the lady downstairs
was a royalist too,
so of course we invited her.
They brought their food up
and Mum had made sandwiches
so you wouldn't have to
move away from the television,
so we didn't miss a thing."

"It was a lovely clear picture,
all the detail.
We kept on saying,
'Oh, I'm glad we didn't go up there
because we wouldn't have been able
to see all this,
inside the abbey.'"

"BBC1 was the only channel on it.
We used to like 'Annette Mills'
and 'Muffin the Mule'
and 'The Flower Pot Men'.

We used to have a little plastic cover
that fitted over the front of the screen
and we screwed it on.
And the top half was blue,
like sky,
and the bottom half was pink,
so it put a bit of colour on it,
even though
it was only black and white."

The television was slow to catch on.
John Logie Baird first demonstrated it
to the public
in 1925.
The BBC broadcast
black and white television pictures
from Alexandra Palace in north London
from 1936.

It was only in the 1950s
that television became really popular.
People had more time and money
for leisure
and television technology improved.
Eileen and Joyce feel passionate
about their television
because they link it to their memories.

To find out more information
About the Bush TV22 television
Receiver visit the science museum's
Website

http://www.sciencemuseum.org.uk/objects/radio_communication/1983-692.aspx